A Skeleton of Something More
by Xyliette
Summary: Short stories from prompts. Various pairings and ratings. Check individual chapters for more information.
1. A Skeleton of Something More

Mark/Callie

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
A Skeleton of Something More  
- Sleeping At Last  
~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Callie spends a lot of time waiting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop- for Mark to have a breakdown and run out with some tramp, for Arizona to get fed up with the screaming in the middle of her restful slumber. But they don't. Pressing through the exhausting first two months of nothing but feeding and sleeping and changing and then changing again.

And Baby Torres-Sloan-Robbins (dubbed "The Devil" by Cristina Yang) has a very healthy set of lungs, or so she's experienced.

So it's surprising. To find Mark in her and Arizona's room at three in the morning whispering nonsense and gibberish to his son because despite living only a hallway away, he likes to sleep on the couch. He wants to be closer. He can't seem to get enough. So even when he puts a diaper on backwards and can't find the other matching sock to save his life, it remains endearing. But watching his fascination, his wonder, makes Callie's stomach turn.

Because in six, seven months or two years, none of this will be so new. The routine will be long since established, there will be precedent. And then maybe Mark gets bored. Then maybe Mark runs out on them to be with whatever he can find, whatever doesn't have visible baggage.

And Arizona. Arizona, out of the goodness of her heart, her soul, and what is likely a strong link to sainthood (Callie suspects) keeps them all steady. She cooks breakfast, she washes laundry before it can pile up, before either of the other two can call for a housekeeper. She helped assemble the crib, the swing, the bassinet, all with Mark, all without killing him. Arizona is the rock. She can put their son to sleep faster than anyone else, and even when she is watching her back, trying not to overstep (something they all agreed can't honestly be done) she has the most amazing connection with the tiny infant that is now running the show.

Sometimes Callie thinks it should be Arizona and Mark. They make the perfect tag team...and she makes...a third. The cooing and awing she willing takes a part in is always followed by strained looks at her life mates to ascertain who is feeling left out, who is feeling unequal. Callie is no good at bath time, that's Mark's department, and Arizona generally gets all of the snuggle time, which leaves Callie with a lot of eating, and a lot of crying.

And Callie believes that it will get old. For everyone.

But mostly she's scared that it will be her that screws everything up this time. That she'll be the thief in the night, stealing her child away from two people who love him endlessly and adore his every squirm.

Once the sparkle wears off, once the novelty of being a three person parenting group begins to grate, one of them will bolt. Because that's what they do, it's who they are. All she can do is hope against hope that the sleeping baby across the room, wrapped up in a fuzzy blue blanket against Mark's chest (a not-so manly cooking show playing on a distant television) will be the glue that makes everything tolerable, that keeps them together.

And just as she begins to close her own eyes, giving Mark a confident nod of approval, she realizes the implications and burdens she would willingly place on her own child.

And then her heart is thumping too loud for sleep.

But there's no laundry piled sky high, no bottles lined up next to the sink, no chores to busy her idle hands and overworked mind.

All she has is time- to wait, for the probable inevitability of fireworks.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	2. Through The Alter Ego Justifications

Mark/Addison

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
Through The Alter Ego Justifications  
- The Seven Mile Journey  
~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

It's not like you expected to see one another there. But then, you suppose, Mark has always been more of a son to Mrs. Shepherd than to his own mother. And you, well you don't have an excuse.

You were in New York anyway, for a special patient, when Nancy called out of the blue. She thought you were thousands of miles away, but for her (and for Derek, though he likely won't even get around to saying hello) you made an appearance anyway.

And while you'd never rejoice at the death of woman who screwed with your head (and your marriage) a hell of a lot more than you'd admit, this all feels rather surreal and painless. Everyone around you seems to be stifling tears or sniffling, and you're thinking about the surgery you need to perform tomorrow morning. That is, until the familiar scent of Mark Sloan creeps under your nose and you turn to see his red-rimmed eyes fixed on the pew in front of him.

Derek is several rows up, flocked by Meredith and sisters and more nieces and nephews than one can ever properly keep track of. Reasonably, you had thought Mark would be somewhere in the mix. But now he's here, next to you. Now there's a bit of a tingle in your chest, a quick flash of heat through your cheeks.

He grabs your hand somewhere mid-eulogy #73,649 without asking, and you squeeze back without much input from your brain as to whether or not that's appropriate, given that you're not exactly on or off the market, and Mark is, well, he's Mark. It's never led to anything substantial or good.

You've forgotten to keep track of whose fault it is this week, that nothing was ever made of the two of you.

"Mark," you whisper, keeping a weary glare on the older couple wedged in next to you. And you're ten seconds from elbowing him, dying to escape for a cup of coffee, preferably with company, when you catch him gulping and then digging the heel of his palm into his aforementioned bothered eyes.

This, obviously, isn't as painless as you were judging it to be.

Three more speakers pass by, one of them Kathleen, and then you find yourself crumbling. You're holding Mark's hand tighter than he is reciprocating and the woman next to you is willingly sharing her tissues. You don't do this, this isn't remotely close to how you conduct yourself in a public setting, but sitting in the warm church air among all of the broken souls has burdened your impenetrable exterior.

The last several years of questionable happiness are battling with your shoulders for survival. And, though it absolutely should be, it isn't about the late Carolyn Shepherd. It's somewhere between watching a man who you never wished ill suffer, and the combination of struggles in your own life that has you whimpering like a small child.

He pulls you to his shoulder almost immediately, and then something inside of you snaps, shuts down. Your eyes dry within a matter of seconds, your throat relaxes, the pressure in your chest dissipates without full relief.

...

"Coffee?" Mark asks softly, watching people filter out of the damp, steamy aisles.

"I...shouldn't," you decide on the spot. "I have an early surgery, a long day."

"Addison-"

"I need to go," you lie, prying your hand from his, praying that everyone is too swept up in their own business to see you swaying awkwardly from side to side. Your surgery is at noon, you aren't flying home until Thursday. But you can't do this dance with him, you don't think you'll survive another round of Mark Sloan, especially when he's genuine and open. You don't need the hassle, you hate that you think of what was once such a wonderful friend as a pain you need to bolt away from.

This week it's your fault. Maybe it always was.

…

When he doesn't stop by your hotel that night, when he doesn't call, you almost worry. It was always one of your favorite things about him, pushing back when you said no, showing up when you most definitely wanted to be alone.

He was everywhere, all of the time. It was both infuriating and infatuating.

But there's no tug-o-war here tonight, only a solo glass of red wine, two fresh socks, and one recently sanitized television remote. And maybe growth, you'd like to think.

Toasting the air, wine wobbling back and forth within its confines, you smile. "To growth."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	3. Keep Your Head Up

Mark & Callie

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
Keep Your Head Up  
- Andy Grammer  
~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

They're both incredibly apprehensive. The hospital is more of a home than either of their large gaping wounds, than the barren apartments that are situated across the hall from one another. There's a nursery in Callie's space, one that Mark helped with- put the crib together and ended up with a handful of extra pieces (and then was too paranoid to "leave it be", and took it apart and did it again), one that holds all of the cute- (a word he will not use in reference to his boy) clothes and shoes and toys and blankets he found when Callie was busy online shopping with her feet up and her eyes buried in wet tissue.

He's done it all, (including a three week stint at a parenting class for new dads that he blackmailed Derek into for moral support). Yet, these last five days at the hospital have been nothing short of perfection (the actual delivery now nothing more than magical sprinkles and glittery dust that end with the most glorious feeling of holding his baby for the first time). Mark's up when he just begins to cry, soothes him without worrying if perhaps the still tired Callie will intervene and tell him he's doing it all wrong.

It's just perfect.

And the extra staff and always visiting friends provide more than enough hands for help.

But at home, in their apartments, there is no grand welcome wagon waiting. Callie's parents, when they finally learned of their grandson, said some very inappropriate things (and more than likely, much more than Callie will tell him) in a language he vaguely understands and then hung up on her, and his biological family has never been there. Derek, Addison, even Cristina and the annoyingly present Jackson Avery are all his family. So asking them for a diaper or some help getting his son all snug in his blankets isn't even a conscious thought.

The only person waiting at home for them is Addison, who is staying as a major favor (and out of something he likes to think is guilt, and a need to escape her current reality) and she has already called to check on them, and to yell at Derek who is supposedly driving them home- that is, if he ever gets out of his morning surgery.

When he finally arrives Callie has braided every single strand of her hair back into a weird mess out of nerves, and Mark has rather permanent fingernail imprints on his palm. They look like they're headed for jail, like they just smashed their parent's car into a fence.

"Well aren't we all peachy this morning," Derek chuckles, immediately bending down to see his godson safely strapped into his car seat

"You're late," Callie snaps, sliding her shoes on and struggling to stand up. Andrew wasn't born how she had planned. He didn't come on the correct day, did not receive the name they had already decided on- Ivan, and given the opportunity to tell her side of the story she maintains that she could have taken Addison, and given birth naturally. Instead, she's got a nice line that pulls every time she dares to breath, and she can't even pick up their child.

And to make matters worse, Mark is hovering. He's beating her to punch on everything, which is kind of unfair given that she just had an eight pound monster sliced out of her. He spoke over her when doctors were in the room, teased her during important moments, and in general, was a distraction, so much so that she can't really decide if she's ready to leave or not considering she hasn't heard half of what anyone has said.

But she has her baby, and Mark, and that's all it takes to get out of the place according to Chief Webber who stops by on their way out.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Addison excuses herself later that evening for a shower, and a quick meal, after situating everyone- getting drinks and blankets and remotes and fussing over one very spoiled baby.

Callie is quiet, pensively watching Mark hold as still as possible with their son in his arms. "You look constipated."

"I'm focused," Mark refutes, perched on the edge of the couch in Callie's apartment (his new home for a while).

"On not breathing?" Callie teases, stretching her sore back over the spine of her chair. He looks terrified.

"I don't want to wake him up," Mark explains, hands practically trembling from their awkward positioning.

"He won't, he sleeps like his mother," Callie reasons. "Scoot back so that when your arms give way he falls onto your lap and not onto the coffee table." She laughs when his eyes widen in horror, and continues until he is firmly pressed against the back of the couch attempting to look at ease.

"Now what?" Mark asks ten minutes later, Callie flipping through the channels of shows she's already seen due to her excessive down time.

"I don't know," she shrugs, looking over at her pair. "We wait, I think."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I can't, you do it," Mark exclaims, moving away from the flailing baby in exasperation. His fresh white gown stuck over his head of dark hair, bunching around his neck.

"Mark-" Callie sighs, it's not easy for her to move, but watching him is sort of comical. It help alleviate her own apprehension about not being quite good enough.

"I'm going to pull his arm out of its joint Callie-"

"You won't-"

"I might-"

"Well, don't yank it through the hole then."

"How else am I supposed to do this?" Mark demands, fidgeting with the fabric as his son protests to cool air on his warm, caramel skin.

"Carefully," Callie offers, pleased this isn't her task. Addison still hasn't returned for these mundane tasks, and baby outfits are no ones specialty.

"Helpful, very helpful."'

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I think it's too hot, or too cold- I can't remember-"

"Callie!" Mark yells over their child, who is screaming in anticipation of his bath, proving to have his mother's volume among other attributes.

Callie studies the tiny infant tub in front of her carefully. It's not surgery, it's not rockets, it's water. And yet, she could freeze him resulting in more of the horrid screams echoing behind her, or she could burn him and that's not something she wants to try and explain to anyone. "It's okay, I guess," she gulps, tiny washcloth in hand, not at all prepared for the awkwardness of something the nurse at the hospital made look like buttering bread.

He's slippery and angry, and his umbilical stump gets in the way, but they fumble through. Mark chooses to comb his hair, a mistake, and Callie gets soap in his tiny eyes but they manage. And later, cuddled up together on the couch, wet blanket pressed to her chest, Callie vows to make that Mark's activity exclusively.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"We cannot possible need all of this," Mark ascertains, gesturing to the bags by the door, Callie tying her hair back as they prepare to go meet Addison for a quick check up.

"It's just bottles, and clothes, and diapers-"

"And four blankets and two pairs of shoes that don't fit and toys he doesn't play with-"

"I don't know!" Callie yells at him, halting his hands from digging any further. "I don't know," she repeats, softer, showcasing a rare vulnerability he's never been okay with.

"Okay," Mark nods, hefting the three bags onto his shoulders and reaching for his son.

Maybe next time it will only be two, or maybe it will be three.

Derek says he has to learn to pick his battles, and frankly, he doesn't mind the light exercise if it makes her feel better.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"He's good," Mark boasts proudly as they enter the apartment later that afternoon. "He's perfect. He's a Sloan."

"And a Torres," Callie reminds him, slumping onto the couch and gesturing for him to hand her Andrew.

Soap in his eyes, tiny head secretly bumped once, endless diapers put on incorrectly, blankets never staying tight enough around his squirming body, and he's survived. Brilliantly, at that.

Mark likes to think they are getting the hang of this, but he's always known better than to assume. Callie likes to think that this circus routine of being friends with a baby is actually going to work out, but she knows the look in his eyes at the end of each night.

But for now, they wait. Wait for the next scream, wait for the next diaper change, the next feeding, the next clothing malfunction.

And pray they don't mess it all up in the meantime.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	4. Skip the Charades

Derek/Addison, Amelia, and Nancy

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
Skip the Charades  
- Cold War Kids  
~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"See, she's fine," Derek mutters under his breath, looking around his living room, occasionally glancing down at his sleeping wife. Her cheeks are brushed with a pale red, her nose raw, hair sticky on her forehead.

"When's the last time you were even here?" Amelia asks nosily, snooping around the brownstone to only find Addison's books with dog-eared, her favorite bottle of wine empty on the coffee table.

"Amy-" Nancy begins to scold, then decides to drop it. Playing referee between her younger siblings was never her favorite chore, and they never seemed to get along.

"I have patients," Derek sighs, resigning himself to shrugging out of his coat and throwing it over the back of the chair that he admittedly hasn't seen all week. He didn't know Addison was sick, he didn't know she wasn't at work today, and for however badly that makes him feel (and he does, because she hates being sick and because he's an ass for not noticing) he does have patients. He tries to rearrange his schedule mentally so that he can be home tonight, for more than four hours just to pass out, and comes up with nothing.

Addison is a surgeon. She'd understand, if she were awake. It's part of what makes them so great.

"That's good...that's just wonderful," Nancy formulates carefully, catching the glare from Amy out of the corner of her eye. "Think of Addison as your patient. VIP patient-"

"You've been talking to Kathleen," Amelia adds for no reason. No one comes up with this shit randomly.

"Kathleen is not in my marriage," Derek hisses, warning them both not to report home to their mother. Not that Amy would. Not that she's on speaking terms with anyone but Addison, who for some reason chooses to only see good in the wild child.

"That'd be weird," Amelia laughs, getting a tough punch in the shoulder from her older sister.

"Why are you even here?" Derek questions, twirling his hands through his fresh hair. A better question would be how he managed to get himself kidnapped in broad daylight by these two buffoons. He's usually much better at escaping them.

"Mom's out of town. I have Amy," Kathleen reminds him. At her age she shouldn't need a babysitter, yet she does.

"She's fine," Derek says softly, looking over his wife once more. Sure her blanket is falling off and she's curled tightly into the couch clutching a pillow. She's a little rough around the edges, flannel pajamas all twisted, but he's seen her worse. "She needs to rest, not to wake up to us all arguing."

"Profound, Dr. Shepherd, profound," Amelia asserts, throwing herself onto the chair, crumpling Derek's winter coat in the process.

"I'll stay," Nancy offers, clasping her hands together. "I can stay."

"Screw that, Derek should stay. We're supposed to go watch a movie. You promised," Amelia reminds her sister.

"Amy-" Derek grunts. She's going to ruin this. He can't be here when she wakes up, vulnerable, needy. He just can't. "Look, Mark had this last week. He was fine in a few days, she just needs to sleep."

Without anyone looking in her direction, Amelia grins to herself and shakes her head. "Maybe Mark should come sit here then," she suggests coyly.

"For once in your life you have a decent idea," Derek compliments, already reaching for his phone. He can't afford to catch this. It's too important of a week to jeopardize his career for a cold.

"Derek," Nancy interjects, trying to stop him. She knows. She has known, about everything. It's the perfect opportunity to get both her brother and her sister in-law to slow down and stay in the same room for more than a few hours. They need this, desperately, and Derek is going to throw it away. "Mark has better things to do with his weekend, I'm sure."

"You mean better _people_ to do this weekend," Amelia corrects.

"Amy!" Both Derek and Nancy shout and then grimace as Addison stretches out on the couch before recoiling.

"I'm calling him," Derek commands, catching Nancy's rolled eyes and proceeding anyway. Four minutes and a little harassment later, it's a done deal. "He's on his way, with soup."

"Derek," Nancy whispers, pulling him aside, closer to the kitchen. "This is your wife," she continues in a low voice, "not Mark's. This is Addison. She doesn't call in sick. She goes in sick."

"It's just a bug," Derek refutes. It's been knocking people out left and right at work. It's circulating like his friend, Mark.

"She needs you here. Not Mark."

"I don't have time for this Nancy. I do not have time. I've already had to cancel one of my surgeries thanks to your shenanigans. I have to go. Stay and wait for Mark. Leave. I don't care. I'm already gone," Derek seethes, backing away, sneaking a peek at Amy who is thumbing through one of his medical journals from three months ago.

"Since when are your patients more important than her?" Nancy demands, waiving wildly at the couch.

The only answer she gets is the front door slamming seconds later, his coat abandoned in haste.

"Der-ek..." Addison squeaks, rolling over, feeling her stomach pitch and churn as she moves.

"It's just me," Nancy tells her soothingly, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. "Mark's on his way."

"That'll cheer her up," Amelia snickers, licking her finger and then flipping the page.

"I'm going to be sick," Addison mumbles, fighting with her blanket to get free and make a break for it.

Nancy eases her off the couch and helps her down the hall, sliding down the wall outside of the bathroom and kicking out her feet. She has better things to do, she has patients too. But Derek's always been more important, too big to own his messes. "Ass," she huffs to herself.

"So...no movie then?" Amelia yells, her voice bouncing off the wedding pictures on the white walls.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	5. Have You Passed Through This Night

Owen & Teddy

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
Have You Passed Through This Night  
- Explosions in the Sky  
~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

It bordered on unethical, what she had done. But then, Teddy was always more of a "for the people" instead of "by the people" kind of doctor. She never expected him to die. It was actually the biggest perk, the certainty that because of her, because of her insurance, that he was going to get to live.

She was saving him. That was the point.

He was going to get the opportunity to have a life. To find the fiancée that he deserved. To hold a steady job. To spend more holidays outside of the hospital than in it for once. Her husband was supposed to be able to fall in love with someone, to find his calling, his family.

"Teddy!" Owen yells, banging on the door of the small house on a tiny hill that he wishes he had seen before this. They spend a meager amount of time at the hospital, mostly avoiding, because after spending so much time together they can only make it awkward for everyone around them. But when he heard, when Cristina mentioned something about Teddy's fake husband coding out of nowhere, alone in his room, well Owen knew where he had to be that night.

Despite their weird dance, despite the mutual and confusing love they shared, despite the struggles their friendship had faced recently, this was his place. And unlike most of the surgeons he knew, Teddy was a human first, and she wasn't going to go drown her sorrows in tequila like Meredith or try and pretend they didn't exist like Alex. She wasn't going to throw in the towel like so many of their colleagues may have done, their own husband's heart seizing under her very capable hands.

"Teddy! Open the door! Theodora!"

"Low blow Hunt," Teddy greets him, feet sliding in her slippers, the door swinging wide open behind her. It lands with a soft tap against the sage wall.

"What are you doing?" Owen asks, eyes darting from side to side. The house looks like, Teddy. Neat, orderly, and yet somehow still warm.

"Making dinner," Teddy tells him, trekking the wooden hallway toward the kitchen. She pulls out an extra square plate, sets it on the two person dining room table she found a month ago, and then hustles back to the stove to check her pasta. Henry never saw the inside of this house, and she has no idea the last time he had a home cooked meal.

The least she could have done is feed him something other than disgusting cafeteria food.

"Dinner," Owen repeats, joining her, the delicious smells overwhelming his otherwise empty stomach, enticing him to pull up a chair.

Teddy stills for a moment, weight shifting from side to side before she gives in. She's never been particularly great at hiding things from Owen and their friendship be damned she could really use someone to talk to. Someone who isn't having a baby with their girlfriend and arch enemy. Someone who is old enough to understand loss, someone who gets what loneliness can do, someone who actually knows she was married (even if he disapproves, and she disapproves of his own marriage).

"Henry was a good guy. He was...funny, and upbeat. For as sick as he was."

"I wish I had the chance to meet him," Owen mentions regrettably. Even if it was a sham, even if it was ridiculous, a better friend would have invited the guy out for a drink, been slightly overprotective.

"You would have liked him," Teddy tells him proudly, dropping a fork above his plate and bringing the steaming food over to the table.

"I didn't know you cooked," Owen admits, taking the first bite, hoping it's better than what Meredith attempted to feed them all for Christmas.

She wants to tell him he doesn't know much about her at all, but it's not really true. While he may not know all the stats, the facts, he knows her. Instead, she smiles and takes a sip of wine. "I...don't know his family. He never mentioned family, and now they're going to get this call telling them that their son/brother/nephew/grandson is dead and oh, by the way, I'm his wife. Or widow, I suppose. I'm a widow," she says with and incredulous laugh.

It's absurd.

"Teddy-" Owen says, clearing his throat. "I want to help."

"Do you have a memorial service, or a funeral, or nothing? Was he religious, should I get a minister or something? Did he want to be cremated or buried or both? Should I take time off work? Where are all of his things? Who will clean those out?"

"Teddy-"

"I'd donate it all, I guess. Does he have a bank account that I need to close, or an apartment I need to give notice on?"

"Teddy-"

"What if he has a pet? What if he has a dog locked up in his apartment right now?"

Owen decides a different approach may be better, so he stands. In front of her, blocking the view of whatever it is that she is staring off into space at. "Didn't you two discuss any of that?"

"It was a fake marriage!" Teddy yells back at him. "I wasn't supposed to be put in this situation. Again."

"Again?" Owen questions.

"I was- It was a good thing. I was doing good, for once. I was doing something good. The right thing."

"Well," Owen begins, then shoves another forkful in his mouth to buy time. It probably wasn't the right thing, and it being good while glaringly obvious wasn't what her mental health needed. "You always do fall for the unavailable ones."

"He's dead," Teddy points out curtly, not taking kindly to his astute observation on her dating patterns.

"You..." Owen pauses, taking the opportunity to grab her hand, feeling it tense under his light touch. "You call his family and they'll know. They'll know if you need a priest, or if he had an apartment. They'll know what to do with the body, with his things, with his probably non-existent dog."

Teddy's head falls before the tears. It wasn't supposed to hurt like this. She was being used (a psychological connection for another time) for insurance. So the pain that rips through her chest, eating away at her lungs should be metaphorical, the sniffling should be caused by something different entirely, and Owen shouldn't even be here, holding her hand, fingers tracing over her weathered skin. "I don't regret it, I'll never regret it," she whispers to him, to Henry.

He was wrong about that. She only wishes she could have done more, been more.

And when she's finished, minutes that feel like hours later, Owen has somehow pulled her into an awkward hug, seated, knees shoved together. Her head pounds with her heart, a resilient thud. "I'm a widow," she reminds him with a smile.

"You're a widow," Owen confirms.

It's a story, more than anything else Seattle has given her.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	6. Burden of Hope

Mark/Addison, Mark/Amelia, Derek - R

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
Burden of Hope  
- Grails  
~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I did not come here for this," Addison pants as Mark presses his lips against the bare flesh he's found under the top button of her blouse. She never comes here for this, doesn't mean she doesn't (willingly) fall into the trap every time, however.

Mark pulls back, seriously, honesty coating his hungry features. She hates this face. "Thank you for saving Callie, for-" he stops before he says it- _saving my baby_. Because she didn't, but she did. He knows which one he wanted more.

She undoes the rest of her shirt for him before the conversation can get any more damn depressing. If he says anything about Sam or about Bizzy or really life in general, she's liable to have a meltdown. And while she didn't come here for sex, she definitely didn't stalk him back to his apartment under the guise of making sure he was okay only to end up in his arms, a mess of tears. Again.

It appears to gain his attention, judging by the way she gets shoved through the apartment. "Wait," Addison demands, skirt half down her legs. "Amelia-"

Mark sighs. Of course she blabbed. "I have a cleaning lady."

"Ew," Addison breathes, whacking his shoulder, stopping just short of reaching for her clothes before thinking fuck it, fuck her. It really doesn't matter anymore.

Nothing matters. Grief does that.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"You're well on your way to drunk," Mark observes, balancing the pitcher of margaritas in his hand before dropping it onto the table. A little slips over the edge, garnishing the sticky table.

She has no idea where she is, what restaurant he has taken her to for a celebratory dinner, or why Derek is tagging along, but the cold alcohol sliding down her throat tastes delicious. And that's kind of where she's at these days. "Maybe," she admits, cheeks rosy with the knowledge of what they've just done in his shower, on his sheets.

Derek rolls his eyes, checking his watch. Designated driver was never his strong suit. "Forty more minutes, then I'm done."

"You know you miss it Shep, the three of us," Mark teases, watching his friend's eyes cloud over. He liked it until his wife cheated, until his friend wasn't his friend anymore. They all know the story.

She wears it like a skin. Derek's is a coat, removable when he so chooses. Mark's a blanket, only wrapped around him in the silence of night.

"Mark slept with Amelia," Addison offers, slurping more of her drink inelegantly.

"Addison-"

"Why am I not surprised," Derek mumbles to himself, flipping though his emails.

"Derek and Meredith are trying to have a baby," Mark counters, taking a small bit of satisfaction in the hurt that crosses over her face.

"Bizzy's dead," Addison says. They all know. Everyone has a fat mouth, but she hasn't said it aloud, to either of them.

The silence that engulfs them is priceless. She uses it for more drinking.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Seattle's always had a thing for you. Your evil," Mark mentions as he drives toward SeaTac.

"You're all better off without me," Addison says softly, earnestly. The city has finally healed. There's babies, and adults, and untwisted, uncomplicated relationships. Couples that have straight lines instead of triangles and hexagons.

"But who will point out all the horrible and damaging things I'm doing to my child?" Mark teases with a gentle smile. He hasn't seen her laugh the entire time she's been here. She's always staring into the distance when she's not trying too hard to appear normal. She looks lost, broken, and he's always felt a little bad when it's someone else's responsibility to step up.

She'd argue that he's managing, that he'd manage, that Arizona will kill him if he so much as breathes wrong, but it's futile. Everyone is getting a child, but her. Everyone is moving on while she's stuck in neutral.

Life is always a cruel tease.

He parks, chooses to tug her luggage across the lot for her, makes sure she at least makes it to the ticket counter before crumbling under her stoic statue. Boarding pass in hand, he stops her, looks her carefully in the eye, and asks the one question he's been begging to since New York, since that night. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Does it matter?" Addison counters, lip crushed by her teeth, painfully cutting into the flesh.

He kisses her before she can tear away, pretends not to notice how eagerly she reciprocates.

He meant to say _Sorry_, it always did come out differently with them.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

She's choking back tears at 28,000 feet. Her throat is battling with her mind, jaw clenched in anticipation of being completely embarrassed. She always slips backwards, falls headfirst. And every single time she slides out of his grasp, she's left wondering how she can always evade the one person she secretly fears she's meant for.

She always thought there'd be more time to say it- _I love you_.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


End file.
